Not Going Out

The PEAK

McLaren Leisure Centre

It's been a strange year. In 2024, I had climbed about 60 mountains in Scotland and the Lake District. Only slightly less than my average of the last thirty-five years. And it included some of the best days on the hills, including a glorious winter's day on Buchaille Etive Beag in December, it could yet be my last ever Munro. I had also climbed my two local micro hills, Lime Craig and Ben Gullipen, over a hundred times as pre-breakfast exercise, as I had done every year since Covid confined us to our homes in 2020. 

I was looking forward to 2025 with plans to climb 40 or so Munros, helping friends complete Munro rounds and to finish my second round of Wainwrights in the Lake District. After a good start in January, climbing Lime Craig three times in 24 hours, things changed in February during a three-day trip to the Lakes. I was struggling as we climbed 8 smaller Wainwrights. A viral infection grounded me, my leg muscles ached, and I was panting on ascents. I was referred to the hospital, where I was found to have inflammation of the lungs. I had been looking forward to trips to Fisherfield and Glen Affric, two favourite areas, but had to give my apologies to John for not managing to accompany him as he reached the end of a fourth round.  I was struggling to get up the micro hills and haven't managed any since May. 

I climbed a couple of smaller  Wainwrights during a week in the Lake District in July and forced myself up Mount Pantokrator in Corfu during a family holiday. I have always climbed the highest mountain on any island I visited. The breathing was relatively easy, but a sore hip meant I was limping badly. On return, I was sent for an X-ray, which showed that I had worn away the cartilage around my hip joint. The surgeon discovered that this had been apparent since 2019, when I had a previous X-ray just before Covid.  I had not been notified of the problem, as with many medical diagnoses during this period, the health service was dysfunctional. It had given me an extra five years of hillwalking and explained why I had found it difficult to run on the roads. Nowadays, I am not even going out.

In August, the respiratory consultant referred me to an exercise class at the PEAK Sports Centre, and since October, I have attended an exercise class at the McLaren Sports Centre. I had never used gyms apart from the annual week in Langdale, when I would use the treadmill on wet days, or when working in Shetland, where I would occasionally attend a spin class in the winter months. Exercise had always been an outdoor activity: running, hillwalking, cycling, mountain marathons, climbing, skiing, or, in younger days, playing lots of football and cricket, and occasionally rugby and hockey. And I walked whenever possible in towns, cities and the countryside, never using the car unless necessary.

I had been dismissive of gyms; you were stuck inside, with repetitive exercises, no scenery, and they were too organised and costly. I have been pleasantly surprised. Partly the discipline of performing 15 or so exercises for an hour, with the chance to set targets and improve week on week, even whilst my hip was getting worse, at least my other muscles were getting flexed. Less so any cardio exercises; I doubt my pulse has exceeded 110 since April, when I last ran the longer 5-kilometre descent of Ben Gullipen.

I have never used either the McLaren Centre or the PEAK, despite being responsible for guiding both through the council. In the case of the McLaren Centre, this involved combining two capital programme projects together, one for a school swimming pool from the regional council and one for a community sports centre from the district council, neither of which had been allocated funding. I combined the two projects into a community-run Sports Centre adjacent to the school in the new council's capital programme and shifted some money that had been intended for a new secondary school elsewhere, which had been switched to the first PFI scheme for a school in Scotland.  

In the case of the PEAK, I supported a determined sports manager in pursuing a comprehensive sports centre to replace the failing swimming pool by utilising the capital receipts from the sale of a secondary school site for housing and relocating the local ice rink to be rebuilt as part of the new centre. We persuaded councillors that this would be a vital facility for public well-being. As a member of the public and no longer able to run or hillwalk, I am very grateful for the facilities, both of which have been immensely successful. Apart from anything else, they got me out of the house and gave me a chance to meet others with far more severe conditions than I had. 

It was the social aspect that kept me going. When one of the council cleaning staff greeted me with"What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be fit", I felt I had been inducted into the third age. The former world over-50, 1500 metres champion, whom I used to run with, also attended a class; he is now over 80. Two or three others with familiar faces also told me that they had worked for me.  Three ladies now regale me with how to cope with a new hip; two of them have had both hips replaced. The instructor tells me to slow down during the exercises. The centre is busy, school children in the gym and outdoor pitches, young mums and third agers in the pool, the car park is full, and there are electric chargers. This place really works. It gave me a flicker of hope at a time of troubles across the world, and a sense of despair about run-down public services and the cost of living in the UK.

The Crow Trap

It's that time of the year when the fifty or so crows nest in the half-dozen ash trees along the burn at the side of the house. They spend early March partnering up and building nests, there appear to be more crows than ever this year and the windy conditions have made construction difficult as the fragile trees sway wickedly and branches snap.

It was lunchtime and it sounded like someone was banging about upstairs or on the roof, I went to look but the sounds had stopped and there was certainly no one around. I had some lunch whilst watching the 1 o'clock news when a phone call made me mute the TV. The sounds had started again and came from the wood-burning flue pipe near the ceiling. It must be a bird, the sounds were like the beating of wings. It had already descended down the 6-inch twin-walled flue pipe through a couple of bends in the attic and the bedroom. I could tell from the sound of wings flapping on the side that it was a bigger bird than a chaffinch, robin or a great tit and assumed it must be a thrush or a blackbird. I opened the wood burner to create a draft and hopefully encourage the bird to take the plunge but it was either stuck or not wanting to drop into the unknown. I decided to try later.

I spent the afternoon in the garden with a friend who came to visit with her young children. It was almost 6pm when I returned to the room and from the sounds I knew that the bird had made it halfway down the flue but I could not entice it any further by tapping on the side. I decided to watch Aftersun, the award-winning 2022 film that my daughter had been involved in commissioning. It lasted 1 hour and 41 minutes during which the trapped bird was slowly descending the flue pipe and arriving at a holding position above the stove. I now figured that the bird must be the size of a jackdaw or a magpie. I paused the film, unless I disassembled the firebrick linings of the stove the bird would not survive and decompose in the flue. A YouTube video was useful and after 15 minutes of tricky manipulation I had all the fire linings out but the torch showed that there was a bar across the bottom of the flue and the bird had stopped moving. I closed the door in the room, left the door of the stove open and opened the window so that if the bird managed to extricate itself there was an escape route to the rain-washed world outside. 

The film was restarted and every so often the bird would make another attempt, I aimed the torch at the stove and this prompted more movement. The tension in the room matched the tension in the film as Paul Mercat and Frankie Corio act out the emotional anguish of estranged father and daughter. It was after 11pm before the film was finished and the credits read. I decided that I could do no more to release the bird so put in a small dish of water and some blueberries, just in case, before closing the door on the stove, the window and the room door and retiring to bed. 

At 3:30am I was awakened by the wind and went downstairs for a glass of water. I looked in the room to see if anything had happened. It had, there was a large crow trapped in the glass-fronted stove. I opened the window and having seen the size of the crow's beak, put on the fire gauntlets to lift out the bird. I opened the stove to grab the bird but no such luck, the crow was out and crashing from one end of the room to another, swishing past my head every couple of seconds, this was Hitchcockian. 

After it finally found a perch on the curtain rail I escaped to the kitchen and dining room in the hope that the bird would find the open window. It didn't, so I opened the patio doors of the dining area, the wind and rain were making whoopee. I stood at the back of the kitchen area in the dark and put the lights on by the patio doors. I opened the door to the other room and after a few minutes, the crow came crashing out, felt the cool air from outside and disappeared into the night. The sense of satisfaction and relief was immense, I could clear up in the morning.

Crow Trap top door

New House

Welcoming Skies

Ben Ledi from the kitchen

In late February 2017, we looked at a building plot that was about to become available. It had been an ambition for a couple of years to build a house but where? We had spent almost 30 years in the family home. It had unbeatable access to walks and cycle routes in the Trossachs and direct access to Craig Mor through the back gate but the stone-built house was over a hundred years old and not easy to keep warm in winter as heating, electricity, and tradesmen maintenance costs were increasing faster than inflation. The rainfall average in the village was 75 inches a year with the road flooded two or three times a year and from late May to September the midges kept us inside in the evenings. We also needed to have a clear out of possessions that cluttered the house and garage.

The plot was on the site of a farm where a cluster of barns was to be demolished. On a cold damp day in February 2017, the attractions of the site, which was littered with rubble and farm detritus were dubious. It was only 12 minutes away from Stirling, there was a good local pub that we frequented and there were two or three families whom we knew, There were 8 plots, one already sold and under construction, We were able to buy a large plot next to a burn and with astonishing views, We would have a clear view of the Campsies over Flanders Moss to the south. Ben Lomond, Ben Ledi, Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin were all in sight to the west and north, although these views would disappear as other houses were built on the site.

We also had the opportunity to specify our own house. It took nine months to design the house, obtain detailed planning permission, negotiate a price for the construction and acquire the site. It was February 2018 before the work began. We considered pulling out on several occasions as costs were rising, many of the fixtures came from Europe and the £ was plummeting. We were unsuccessful in selling our existing property before construction started and this required us to obtain a bridging loan to pay for the construction. These are not easily available and together with architect fees, structural engineering fees, planning permissions and building warrants added to the mounting costs. The property market had stalled as a result of the Scottish Government introducing a Land and Buildings Property Tax of 10% on larger houses and the uncertainty caused by Brexit. However, we figured if we didn't make the move now, it would be too late to enjoy the benefits of a new house.

We marked out the site with the builder in early February. Within a fortnight we had run into a major problem as the slab for the foundations extended to a steep slope down to a burn that was part of the plot. The additional concrete that had to be poured to secure the foundations wiped out all of our £25k contingency. The upside was the glorious weather, by July the house was well ahead of schedule. We visited the site about twice a week throughout the construction and progress continued apace until mid-summer, when the house was 4 weeks ahead of schedule. We managed to sell the existing house a couple of weeks after securing the bridging loan, this had to be rescinded costing £5000 for the month we had held the unused loan. We moved into our daughter's flat in Glasgow for 6 months, eager to experience life in the heart of Glasgow.

The summer holidays meant that some of the tradesmen were on holiday when they were scheduled to complete their work. The kitchen fitters were late and then had to reorder parts from Germany and suddenly we had lost all early gains in the construction schedule. The biggest problem was the failure of the vendor of the serviced plot to commission the provision of water, electricity or drainage. Together these issues delayed the final completion by 4 weeks and the supply of water was a quick fix that was not resolved for another 6 months, delaying the completion certificate on the house. The access road was a muddy track from all the construction traffic. Services that should have been installed at the start of the site works were left to be fitted retrospectively, this was costly for the vendor and hugely frustrating for the residents.

We eventually moved in early December on a rain-filled day, it was a struggle to get the large removal lorry to the front door and an eight-hour job to unload the vehicle that had to make two trips from the storage depot. We managed to sort out much of the chaos by Christmas and are now into the snagging, the broadband connection has still to be provided. Meanwhile, we still have a couple of dozen boxes to unpack when our energy levels are restored and we have the inclination.

The plot on first viewing, some imagination needed here

Are we serious?

The pile of rubble is now the location of the house

Week 1 - Marking out the foundations

Week 2 - Groundworks

Week 10 - Lifting on the roof trusses

Week 11 - Open plan upstairs 

Week 13 - Timber Kit complete

Week 16 - Slating the roof

Week 18 - The Shed/Garage

Week 18 - Perfect weather for the joiners

Week 18 - South elevation, solar panels installed

Week 18 - Stonework

Week 33 -  Shipping Container for garden stuff and bikes

Week 35 - interior fittings

Week 36 - Laying the slabs

Week 37 - Flooring

Week 40 - Sparkle clean

Christmas Eve with Kit 

Christmas Eve

The Campsies from the living room

Looking west to Ben Lomond

Week 68 - Lawns greening

Campsies

Summertime 

House Facelift Complete

Work in Progress

Job Done

As you can see the house has now had the scaffolding removed and for the first time in 6 weeks we have the house to ourselves again. I painted it over two dawn to dusk 12-hour days before the scaffolding disappeared. We decided to do it in the original highland green. Aileen wouldn't let me do it in totally nutmeg (a dusty yellow), or overtly olive (yes, look at the Dulux colour charts) as she doubted if I would get round to do the other elevations to match - such trust.

The roof repairs were much needed but the escalating problems with the timbers on the facade and the upper wall, which collapsed when I was passing through Gatwick on my way to Corsica, meant I had to abandon my Corsican GR20 attempt and return home. On reflection, this was no bad thing as there were 9 days of electrical storms in Corsica. I was a bit frazzled when I retired at the end of Q3 of my life, electroconvulsive therapy might have meant a premature ending of Q4.

When I arrived back from Gatwick, the bedroom was festooned with emergency scaffolding surrounding the bed and other effects, such as my bedside reading, running shoes and items that I had ditched at the last minute to lighten my rucksack. The bedroom had the random clutter of a Tracy Emin exhibit.

The bedroom wall had to be demolished and rebuilt with brick and new timbers, decisions on slates had to be taken - recycled or new. I chose the former and we now are sheltered by recycled slates from the Trossachs Church, where we had married 30 years ago. We had lots of different tradesmen, seven on one day, competing to find parking space in the drive. They were squatting in the garage with their tools, and randomly depositing nails, Irn Bru bottles, mortar, old slates, sawdust, uneaten lunches and worst of all the Sun newspaper throughout the garden.  I was a supportive foreman/dogsbody and I went through 4kg of sugar making teas and coffees for the breaks most of which involved surreal episodes of conversation.  It reminded me of an episode of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, but turbocharged with some Scottish invective.

You will see in the photo below that there was a silver lining. I managed to climb Ben Lomond virtually,  it is below my right hip, whilst playing on the scaffolding. This could save a drive to Rowardennan and a 2-hour slog up the boggy path during the fifth round.

Great place for a Roof Garden